The earth was coming to an end. Both earths –
for that matter both of the cosmoses were collapsing in on itself. In the pale
light of the Brothers’ death was having an adverse effect in both universes.
If the Gathering was not completed within the next few hours then all life will
cease to exist.

Nigthwing stood there, over the vista that is
Gotham City. Once it had been a testament of the human spirit! Now it was merely
a silent testament to death and mayhem. Overhead the mighty Bat-signal – the
signal flare that Commissioner James Gordon employed to summon the Dark Knight
and inform him Gotham City needed it’s dark defender – a signal that would
go unanswered, and especially now that Gotham City needed him the most.

Nigthwing leaped off the building's confines and
plunged to the dark streets below.

Spider-man stood there, over the vista that is New
York City, rain pounding on him, soaking his red, blue webbed out-fit. Once it
had been a testament to freedom, and man’s unalienable rights, with Lady
Liberty standing watch close by. Now she stood there, silent, paying bitter
homage to the atrocity that man can release upon their fellow brethren and
carnage rein in the streets – literally.

Spider-man could see the symbiont creature known
as Carnage, one of Spidies deadliest of opponents. The friendly neighborhood
Spider-man leaped off the tile rooftop and swung his way toward the blood
covered streets below.

“We are Venom!” the dark creature roared,
lashing out of the alleyway, his long dark nails missing Nigthwing by a matter
of sheer inches. “Where . . . where are we?” he asked searching his
surroundings. “What happened to the rain?”

“Gotham City!” Nigthwing roared, charging
toward the stranger, lunging forth at the temporally confused hulk before him.
“And this is the welcoming committee,” he brought his long leg up and
around, it collided with blinding forth to Venom’s jaw. The beast roared,
tumbling over onto the right side, colliding and crushing several trash cans. In
the Venom’s wake a white cat lunged forth, claws extended, as it tried to
grasp for freedom.

“We are not amused!” Venom bellowed, in rage,
it’s long tongue struck out, hideously, licking the blood that poured from his
mouth.

“We?” Nigthwing asked, taken aback. “But
there is only one of you . . .”

Cletus Cassidy was a convicted serial killer, who
shared a prison cell with Eddie Brock – otherwise known as Venom. When Brock
escaped, the spawn of the symbiotic alien costume that gave Venom his powers
bonded with Cassidy, turning him into a being more monstrous than Venom itself:
the most dangerous super-powered killer on the planet.

And guess whose job it is to stop him now, Spider-man mused to
himself, the world swinging by him in a blur. But, Spider-man wondered how
did he escape his tomb of ethereal energy that the Silver Surfer placed on him
shortly after the symbiont left him? Sky-Rider said that it was unbreakable!

Spider-man webbed his way down toward the streets
below, where the creature known as Carnage reaped the roof off of a baby blue
Volkswagen, its long crimson red and black fingers started to descend upon the
terrified occupants of the ill fated car.

“Now, now. Now, Carnie!” Spidy said,
disapprovingly, he swung down, his iron grasp wrapped around a rope of webbing
that he had attached to a neighboring builder across the street, his extended
muscle-bound legs collided with Carnage in the small of his back. Sending him
flying toward the pavement below. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to have
an snacks before bed time? Tsk, tsk, tsk. She’ll be so ashamed,” he taunted,
flipping in the air backward and landing on the wet streets below.

“Web-slinnger! I shall
kill you! And feast upon your lifeless husk!” Carnage lunged forth, in
sheer rage. The symbiont that covered all over Cletus Cassidy lanced forth, on
his left arm, slamming and pinning the webbed clad Avenger onto the ground
helpless to move, the other morphed into a massive stone cutting ax.

“Time to die, Spider!
For the rains here and its going to wash you out!” Carnage laughed,
demonically.

A golden, blinding light covered them, bathed
them. Soon the light gave way and Spider-man and Carnage were gone, no where to
be seen. Overhead lighting lashed out and the rainstorm continued.

“You! What are you doing here!” barked Venom his massive fist colliding
with the newly arrived Carnage, sending him flying into the windshield of a
nearby-parked car. Spider-man quickly scrambled out of Venom’s way, as the
massive muscle-bound beast stalked its “son.” “We shall kill you,
Cassidy!”

Spider-man sighed, clutching his head, he was
feeling dizzy. “What - - What happened to the rain?” he asked, not feeling
the constant pounding of water upon him.

“It has rained in Gotham for about three months
now,” Nigthwing stated, approaching Spider-man and helping him to his feet.

“Gotham? Then I’m in the other ‘twin’
universe, just my luck, Mary-Jane’s going to kill me when she catches wind of
this,” Spider-man mumbled to himself, his head was clearing fast.

“Name’s Nigthwing,” he grumbled, pulling out
a bat-a-rang from his dark navy blue utility belt that clung to his lean
muscular firm body. With a flick of his wrist the bat-a-rang unfolded, and he
took up a throwing stance. “Know these guys?”

“Unfortunately, I do,” Spider-man grumbled.

“Any weaknesses!” Nigthwing launched the
bat-a-rang forward, it spiraled through the icy cold air, and a long thick dark
rope was tied to the back of one of its two wings. The rope wrapped around the
massive bulk that is Venom – who was currently in the process of giving
Carnage a lobotomy – and with a massive yank of the rope, Nigthwing pulled
Venom’s enormous body and allowed it to smash upon the streets below.

“Bad move, Nigthwing!” Spider-man said. “We
should be joining forces with Venom to defeat Carnage! He’s a bigger threat
that even Venom himself!”

“What!” Nigthwing jerked his head around to
stare at Spider-man as if he just spontaneously grown a second – or even third
– head.

Venom flexed his muscles and the rope, which had
the strength to even give the mighty Bane without trouble to free himself, and
he had broken it as if it was nothing. “Arrgh!” he roared, in pure blinding
rage, getting up to a kneeling posture. He turned to face Nigthwing, turning his
back one the battered Carnage, a hellish glint in his eyes.

Giving Carnage the opportunity that he needed. He
leaped onto the distracted Venom, his hands turning into blades and he started
to pulverize the massive creature. “Hello,
‘father’!” Carnage smiled as he started
to carver up Venom like a roast. “Does everyone
know what time it is . . . IT’S
CARNAGE TIME! Can anyone say . . . slaughter feast?”
He roared through bolts of laughter, his blades slicing through Venom, like a
hot knife through butter.

“A sonic pulse.”

“What?”

“They’re weakness is
a sonic pulse,” Spider-man explained. “Massive shrieks of sound disturbs the
bonding created by the man and the ‘living’ costume. In essence it tears
them apart.”

“Why didn’t you say
that earlier!”

“I tried.”

Nigthwing rolled his
eyes, he pressed a small control button on his belt, a small compartment swung
open and three small little vials encased in a dark blue bird-like embalm
dropped into Nigthwing’s waiting hands. “Brace yourself!” he ordered
charging forward and leaping over the disturbing scene before him. The three
vials dropped onto Carnage’s back and gave way, sending pulses of sonic energy
into the atmosphere around the two.

They screamed in sheer
pain, there creatures that covered their skin like a costume started to tear
away from them, and without them the human part of the joining could not survive
and vice versa. Soon the sonic waves ceased, leaving the two archrivals laid
there passed out, and their living “costumes” swirled around each other in a
bath of ooze.

Within moments the boys
in blue arrived, they handcuffed the two, nude men, that were bathed in their
own alien symbionts surrounding them.

Nigthwing looked over to
Spider-man and with a tired expression said, “What are those things?”

“Venom and Carnage.
They’re bonded to an alien creature, and now they share a parasite-type
relationship, none can survive without the other. First the ‘suit’ – if
you would – was joined to me then I got rid of it, once its true nature was
revealed to me. Soon the ownership traded off to what is now Venom, latter when
the two were sharing a prison cell, the Venom creature spawned, and was bonded
with what is now Carnage.”

Before Spider-man could
even open his mouth a massive golden light surrounded them, bathed them. But
this light wasn’t the same that had “visited” Spider-man and Carnage in
New York City, this light came from everywhere an nowhere at once. “People
of this earth,” a voice called out, that Nigthwing could recognize as that
of the Spectre. “I am the Spectre.
Cosmic events have been casted that this universe will soon forever merge with
another- its twin ‘brother’ universe. But the merger will bring about our
salvation. For both us and our neighboring brothers from afar. Your lives will
be forever changed. Be warned, these are parallels times, for us all.”

And with that the light
dissipated and the voice diminished to nothingness. Nigthwing and Spider-man
stared at one another not knowing what was to come . . . or even how they were
going to deal with it.